back to work tomorrow

[incandescens]

Well, since I was feeling croaky and sniffly and generally subpar today, I phoned in sick and took the day off. I feel much better now. Hopefully back to work tomorrow.

Virtuously resisted the urge to blow money on Stikfas on ebay. Sigh. They're so nifty.

Reading extremely polite dialogue exchanges during combat makes me want to purr. As per this from GetBackers volume seven, cut to spare those who are not fond of French:


AKABANE : Oh... tiens donc. C'est etonnant de recontrer ici quelqu'un comme toi...qui vient de la tour... (Oh... well now. It's astonishing to meet here someone like you... who comes from the Tower...)
(pause for another exchange of pointy things)
AKABANE : Puis-je savoir a qui j'ai l'honneur? (May I know whom I have the honour of dealing with?)
KAGAMI : Kagami Kyoji.
AKABANE : Desole, cher Kagami, mais je peux pas trainer longtemps, sinon mon ami Ginji va m'oublier. (Il est si distrait!) Alors, si tu veux bien passer a la vitesse superieure... Parce que... (draws scalpels) Moi aussi... je vais sortir le grand jeu. (I must apologise, my dear Kagami, but I cannot delay here for a long time, or my friend Ginji will forget me. (He is so distractable!) So, if you would care to move to a superior grade of speed... Because.. (draws scalpels) I too... am going to go to the next level.
KAGAMI : Sans remords? (Without remorse?)
AKABANE : Aucun. (None.)
KAGAMI : Alors... c'est parti! (Very well... it is done!)
(diamond dust comes from his hands)


Working through my CD collection to get the favourite parts transferred onto my iPod. Being somewhat alphabetical in method, today I shifted Indigo Girls, Cleo Laine, and Daniel Lavoie, among others. The best thing is that I keep on coming across songs I enjoy which I no longer consciously remembered having. Mmm.

---

The Neglected Child

(Dedicated, in a glow of Christmas charity, to a philanthropic society)

The Teachers in the Temple
They did not lift their eyes
For the blazing star on Bethlehem
Or the Wise Men grown wise.

They heeded jot and tittle,
They heeded not a jot
The rending voice of Ramah
And the children who were not.

Or how the panic of the poor
Choked all the field with flight,
Or how the red sword of the rich
Ran ravening through the night.

They made their notes; while naked
And monstrous and obscene
A tyrant bathed in all the blood
Of men that might have been.

But they did chide Our Lady
And tax her for this thing,
That she had lost Him for a while
And sought Him sorrowing.

-- GK Chesterton

Comments

[shiny-monkey.livejournal.com]

Stikfas rock! I have to toddle into Tokyo to buy them, though, as Tomy brings them in as "Tomy Direct" imported items (in other words, there's no domestic distribution) and I can't buy them through work, what a hardship. =D

[incandescens]

Ah, another fancier. ;)

They're not exactly easy to get hold of here in England, either. The Forbidden Planet chain of shops stocks them, along with other fantasy/sci-fi/anime type model stuff, but they're expensive, and they don't have the cool new ones like the ninja or the phantom or villain or superhero or whatnot. Thus the temptation to do some shopping on ebay.

However, I do have three sitting on my computer top at work (the soldier, the cop (and dog), and the monk) so all is not lost. The lady and dragon are at home, as the very idea of trying to bring the dragon into work . . .

[incandescens]

But such polite French! Now if only the English translation will keep the dialogue as formal . . .

[yagathai.livejournal.com]

So my colloquial (continental) French isn't so good, but I'm curious how "je vais sortir le grand jeu" translates to "go to the next level".

[incandescens]

I was having difficulties translating it, to be frank. "Bring out the big guns," might have been closer, but felt overly slangy. In practical terms, they were upping the level of the fight (and the weaponry/moves they were using), but I'm not really happy with "go to the next level" either. Something along the lines of "play with the big boys" would definitely have been too slangy for the speech patterns involved.

[yagathai.livejournal.com]

"Escalate this conflict", perhaps? Or is that not colloquial enough?

[incandescens]

No, that would be a good translation. Thanks! (My French is workable but far from perfect.)

[yagathai.livejournal.com]

You've got me beat, I'm sure. My french is a decade rusty, and a non-standard creole/quebecois hybrid patois dialect to boot.

[incandescens]

You still might well do better than I would with slang. Some translations of manga incorporate French slang, the better to convey original Japanese slang, and it can be quite fiddly (slang dictionary or not) for the poor reader who learned nice polite French at school. :)

[yagathai.livejournal.com]

Unless the slang hails from either Montreal or Mauritius (island, Indian ocean), I doubt I'd do any better than you. Likely worse, in fact, as you own a slang dictionary. ;)

[incandescens]

Phrases I did not learn in school:

"faire sauter" -- to blow something up
"coup du boule" -- headbutt

[yagathai.livejournal.com]

Heh heh. "Make jump" and "strike of the ball", eh? They make about as much sense as similar English expressions, I suppose.

[incandescens]

Well, you are technically making the building jump in the air, I suppose. As to the other one, I suspect that goes to the football-style head meeting ball . . .

[yagathai.livejournal.com]

Boule isn't literally "ball" -- it implies any round object, like sphere or globe or round-shaped loaf of bread. I'm guessing that the boule to which the expression refers is actually colloquial for head, hence "strike of the head".

[incandescens]

Ah, that's interesting. I'd thought it's "headbutt" meaning came directly from the headbutt-tactic used in (soccer) football, which France does play.

[yagathai.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm no student of french etymology. I could be wrong.

[incandescens]

Getting out my French dictionary and looking at other boule-related slang:

(please excuse the lack of accents, I know I've put my list of how to do them somewhere but can't find it at this precise second)

perdre la boule: to crack up, to lose one's marbles, to go round the end, to lose the plot
donner un coup de boule a qn: to headbutt someone
prendre un coup de boule: to get headbutted
avoir la boule a zero: to have a skinhead haircut
se mettre en boule: to hit the roof/ceiling, to blow one's top, fly off the handle

All seem fairly head-ish.

But then, at the other end (so to speak) there is the classic expression of

Boules! (Balls! Bollocks!)

[yagathai.livejournal.com]

... and the mystery is solved.

Somewhat.

Plus, now I can describe how Omar Sharif headbutted that French cop last year -- in french!